Fatal Frame III: The Tormented
Fatal Frame III: The Tormented, known as Zero ~Shisei no Koe~ (Zero ~Voice of the Tattoo~) and Project Zero III: The Tormented in Japan and Europe respectively, is a PlayStation 2 exclusive, Japanese survival horror game and the third installment in the Fatal Frame series, as well as the direct sequel to the first and second game. It was developed and published by Tecmo on July 28, 2005 in Japan and November 8, 2005 in North America, and was published by Take-Two Interactive on February 24, 2006 in Europe. It was re-released as a "PlayStation 2 Classic" on the PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 on October 1, 2013 in North America. Unlike the previous games, Fatal Frame III mainly takes place in the protagonists' dreams. While the main protagonist is awake, however, the player has the freedom to explore her home. The game focuses on Rei Kurosawa, a photographer who has recently lost her fiancé, Yuu Asou, in a tragic accident. Rei sees Yuu while taking photos of an old manor, however, and decides to follow him. In doing so, she falls under the curse of manor, where survivors of a disaster are tormented in their sleep by the ghosts of the dead. Like the previous game, Fatal Frame III features a dominant color throughout. The dominant color in this game is a luminescent but somber blue, signifying the themes of dreams and ethereal slumber. Synopsis After following Yuu into the strange manor, Rei begins to "visit" the Manor of Sleep in her dreams at night in hopes of seeing him again. While exploring the manor's entrance, however, she is chased by a ghost wandering its halls. The ghost was covered in tattoos, and after being touched by her just once, Rei wakes from her nightmare and the same tattoo begins to appear on her body, causing her pain. When asleep, Rei returns to the manor every night, looking for the truth behind the Tattooed Curse, and eventually she finds out that only those who are sole survivors of a disaster are brought to the snowy manor. Miku Hinasaki, who lives with Rei and works as her assistant, was the only survivor of the Himuro Mansion in Fatal Frame, and she is brought into the nightmare as well. With her help, Rei is able to uncover the dark rituals that occurred inside the manor, and eventually doomed its inhabitants. The two must work fast to undo the darkness that grips the dream mansion before the curse of the tattoo consumes them, and they are forever trapped inside the nightmare. Plot When Rei first enters the mansion in her dreams, she is chased by the ghost of a Tattooed Priestess, a shrine maiden of the Kuze Shrine. Rei discovers that their purpose is to be engraved by a sacred tattoo to stop the spread of The Rift, the divide between the land of the living and the land of the dead. To keep the Rift at bay, the tattoo, in the pattern of a Snake and Holly, is instilled with the pains of those who visit the shrine and offer it. This process, called the Piercing of the Soul is done with ink made from the blood of the living and the dead, called Ink of the Soul. Through this ceremony, the tattooed priestess is able to take away the sorrows and suffering of those who come to the shrine, and stop the Rift from spreading. However, because of the agonizing pain she is under, measures must be taken to ensure the priestess will be at peace. At the end of the ritual, the priestess is taken to the Chamber of Thorns deep within the shrine and impaled inside its walls. She is then sung a lullaby to ensure that she falls into a deep sleep and never wakes from her pain. Through this Impalement Ritual, the priestess is kept from wandering the shrine, and allowing the pain engraved on her to affect others. The last Tattooed Priestess to undergo these rituals was a young woman named Reika Yukishiro. Reika came from a village beside the Kuze Shrine, where she met and fell in love with a man named Kaname Ototsuki. One day, when Kaname was away, disaster befell the village and Reika's whole family was killed. When the shrine offered to adopt Reika, she agreed, hoping that by becoming the Tattooed Priestess she would be able to ease the pain of those who have felt loss, as she has. When the time to sleep in the Chamber of Thorns came, Reika was unable to forget Kaname, and her dreams began to affect him. Kaname visited the shrine and, with the help of a handmaiden, found Reika within the Chamber of Thorns. This was strictly against the code of the shrine, and when the Kuze Family Head found out, she rushed to the chamber and killed Kaname in front of the awake Reika. Devastated, Reika lost control of the tattoo's pain, allowing the Rift to be unleashed. In order to contain the Rift, the shrine's carpenters and handmaidens were sacrificed to seal the shrine within a dream. But the Tattooed Priestess's pain could not be controlled, and those who survived disaster and suffer grief over the dead are haunted by the Manor of Sleep and the Tattooed Curse. Rei is lured into the manor as she continues to think of Yuu, however, those who continue to follow the dead into the manor are eventually consumed by the cursed tattoo and are forever trapped inside the dream. Miku hoped to be with her brother Mafuyu and so follows him deep into the manor. She eventually goes too far and becomes unable to wake from the dream. Rei is unable to bring her back and as things begin to seem hopeless, Yuu's friend Kei Amakura visits Rei in her home. Kei is the uncle of Mio and Mayu Amakura, and since the events of Fatal Frame II, Mio has been suffering from the Tattooed Curse and dreaming of the Manor of Sleep. Hoping to find a cure for his niece, Kei fervently researched the curse and the Kuze Shrine, but eventually, he began to enter the dream himself. Kei came to Rei to seek her insight and pay his respects to Yuu. Kei brings his research findings out and proposes his plan to Rei. Kei believes that to subdue the Tattooed Priestess for good, they must venture into the Chamber of Thorns and impale the priestess with the Tattooed Stakes belonging to the handmaidens. Kei searched for the stakes and after finding them, enters the chamber. Upon entering, Kei begins to feel an enormous force, as if the chamber is engulfed in darkness. Kei attempts to impale Reika with the stakes, but he discovers that Reika has been pinned down the whole time. Suddenly, Reika begins to break free from her stakes, and before Kei is able to escape, the chamber doors seal shut. The next morning, Rei sees that Kei has been taken by the curse as well. Rei is determined to end this curse, and decides that she needs to enter the Chamber of Thorns herself. When Rei arrives, Reika rises and starts to pursue Rei. With the power of her determination, sixth sense and the Camera Obscura, Rei is able to defeat Reika, who falls and asks to finally be let to sleep. Endings There is only one ending cinematic that plays after completing Fatal Frame III. However, after finishing the game at least once and fulfilling certain tasks during the next playthrough, an additional ending can be achieved where all main protagonists survive. Normal Ending (Ending 1) Rei shuts Reika's eyes, saying that "It's alright...to close your eyes now". Rei goes farther past the Chamber of Thorns, and she reaches the Abyss of the Horizon. She sends Reika and Kaname's bodies on a boat across the waters of the abyss while singing the last verse of "Sleeping Priestess", allowing them to "Go to the other side". The souls of the dead then appear and follow suit, crossing the rift as brightly lit lanterns floating and drifting on the water. Rei then sees Yuu's soul among the mass of the departed and chases after him. Rei is determined to go with Yuu, believing that she should be by his side from now on, as he had been with her. Yuu turns to face Rei and embraces her, but says that he must go on alone. Before parting, he takes the cursed tattoo away from Rei and says that as long as Rei goes on living, he will continue to live on with her. Rei wakes up inside her home, and realizing what has happened, breaks into tears. It is then revealed that Miku was also spared from the curse, and the two now understand that they must continue to live on no matter what. Good Ending (Ending 2) While the ending movie is the same as in the first, photos shown during the credits reveal a more positive conclusion to the story. During this playthrough, Kei Amakura does not disappear and leave behind a soot stain. Instead, he is shown waking up, as did Miku. The photos also show that Mio was eventually freed from the same curse, and was introduced to Miku and Rei. To achieve this ending, both pieces of the echostone earrings must have been found and Kyouka Kuze must be fought additional times. Misc. Info Although the second ending hasn't been as canon to the series, Makoto Shibata (director and co-creator of the Fatal Frame series) has stated that he and the other game staff considered the second ending to be the canon ending due to the fact that all the main characters are alive and are free from the curse. Gameplay Fatal Frame III is similar to the previous two games, in that the player controls the character of either Rei, Miku or Kei and uses the Camera Obscura to photograph clues and fight off ghosts. Like the previous games, it is also separated into phases, here called "Hours", and between hours the player is able to look around Rei's home during the day and gather research, before going to bed at night and entering the dream manor. One key difference is that certain photos taken in the mansion can be captured as Musty Film in the real world, where it can be developed in Rei's dark room and used to gather information. After each "Hour", Rei wakes up back in the real world, however, as the plot proceeds the lines between the two worlds begin to blur for Rei. As a result, she starts to have visions of ghosts even when awake and the mysterious tattoo grows to cover an ever-increasing percentage of her body. The basic controls and mechanics have remained generally the same; there is a filament on-screen that indicates the presence of a ghost and the camera can be raised to enter Viewfinder Mode to investigate or to battle. The filament has an added capability, however. In addition to indicating whether the ghost is hostile or not, the filament also turns blue when a wandering ghost is unaware of the player's presence, and red when it knows the player's location, adding an element of stealth gameplay. The camera has a limited amount of film and thus film must constantly be stocked. Points are gained through defeating ghosts or by taking pictures of benign ghosts, and the points can go towards powering up the camera or purchasing the unlockables obtained after beating the game. Like the previous games, there are short puzzle sequences scattered throughout the game, progressively increasing in difficulty and opening up more sections of the manor as the story goes on. In some chapters, the player has the opportunity to play as Miku or Kei. Each character has different special abilities, making each of their playing styles unique. Rei is capable of using the camera's flash to scare off some spirits, but can only use it a limited number of times. Miku has a special "Sacred Stone" charm that decreases the speed of spirits when used. Additionally, using her "Double" ability, she can double the camera's charge and damage. She can also crawl into smaller spaces and openings due to her smaller physical size. Kei, with his greater physical strength, can perform actions such as moving heavier objects or jumping from the roof of one building to another. However, as Kei's spritual capacity is weaker than that of either Rei or Miku, his camera obscura is significantly weaker and he must hide to avoid detection by spirits. Guidebook interview An interview featured in the game's official guidebook, with Keisuke Kikuchi (producer) and Makoto Shibata (director), was published as below: Sales in Japan Fatal Frame III was released on July 28. Below is displayed the weekly results based on Media Create and Famitsu's software sales charts (number of sales vary depending of the chart): Global sales Below is displayed the number of units sold worldwide according to VGChartz: North America: 0.04m (49.0%) Europe: 0.03m (38.2%) Rest of the World: 0.01m (12.8%) Global: 0.08m As of February 21st 2015, 0.08m units were sold. http://www.vgchartz.com/game/718/fatal-frame-iii-the-tormented/ Trivia *The game's ending theme is Koe, performed by Tsukiko Amano. *Advertised at the end of the game's promotional trailer was a DVD of the "History of Project Zero" and an art book titled "The Kurosawa Report". The book and DVD were available to those who pre-ordered the game in Japan. *Assuming the player has achieved the second ending, all four main characters of the series (Miku, Mio, Rei and Kei) are introduced to one another by the end of the game. *The main protagonist of the game shares the same initials as the main antagonist of the game. *Rei* *Ku*rosawa - *Rei*ka *Ku*ze. Both also share the same voice actresses in the Japanese and North American versions. *Unlike the first two games, Fatal Frame III didn't have a special edition released for the Xbox. Thus, remaining as a PlayStation 2 exclusive. Promotional images External links *http://fftranslations.atspace.co.uk/ff3interviewgb.html Category:Games Category:Fatal Frame III Category:Main Series Category:Quest